Cops to turn paramedics for injured

To put the plan into action, Delhi Police is procuring emergency wound care kits for use by the cops to attend to accident or a crime victims before rushing them to hospital.Raj Shekhar | TNN | January 06, 2017, 07:40 IST

NEW DELHI: Seeing the cops bundling an accident victim into a police van ignoring all precautions about handling injured people, particularly those with spinal injuries, may be a thing of the past in Delhi with the city police all set to play first-contact paramedics. To put the plan into action, Delhi Police is procuring emergency wound care kits for use by the cops to attend to accident or a crime victims before rushing them to hospital.

The kit will contain, among other things, cervical collars and frames to support bone fractures. These will help avoid aggravation of injuries during the shift to a hospital. The cops will be trained in the use of medical aids like these. Around 800 kits are being procured, sources say. Sanjay Beniwal, special commissioner (Operations), will oversee the project. “It is the need of the hour,” Beniwal said, “so we are standardising the emergency kits for PCR vans in collaboration with the Indian Medical Council.”The police initiative will be welcomed by Delhi’s citizens, because the availability of on-road medical care via the Centralised Ambulance Trauma Services (CATS) is grossly inadequate —a mere 155 medical vans for a population of more than 1.5 crore.

In most countries abroad, the cops don’t touch accident and crime victims, leaving it to the paramedics to handle them. The emergency medical technician, as the paramedic is formally designated, is highly trained and takes charge of the victims at the emergency spot, often performing life-saving procedures while on the way to hospital. They also administer medicines and anaesthesia, apart from performing invasive procedures on patients prior to their arrival at the medical centre.

In Delhi, the police patrol vehicles end up ferrying more than 150 patients to hospitals every day. While the cops are trained in first aid or resuscitation procedures, lack of medical expertise and equipment hobbles the system, and many accident victims don’t survive the ride to hospital.

Doctors point that the victims often suffer from cervical, spinal and other damage due to being driven in a PCR van that doesn’t offer medical support. “While a police van is certainly not a substitute for an ambulance and the government priority must be to strengthen the CATS fleet, skilling the police personnel adequately and training them for medical emergencies will always be an advantage,” said a senior police officer.

Equipped with medical kits, the cops would be able to stanch bleeding, support injured body parts and ensure transport in a medically better form. Once the 112 emergency service — the equivalent of the American 911— is operational, coordination among the police, hospitals and ambulance services will be enhanced.

In the past few years, Delhi Police has been making efforts to train and equip its personnel to save lives. Among other measures, the Heart Foundation of India trained all PCR staffers to provide cardio-pulmonary resuscitation, with 7,228 personnel receiving training till last year. Trainings were also imparted by Indian Medical association, Red Cross, Delhi and some NGOs. Police reckon these steps helped to save 16 lives last year.

The police control room gets around 24,500 calls per day, half of these related to injuries in accidents or crimes. In 2015, there were 7,724 road accidents, 1,582 of them fatal, in Delhi. Seven babies were delivered in police vans too.

Only in India the healthcare financing is very small when compared to the financing by the other forces rather than the patient himself or herself paying out of pocket. Having 70-75% of the expenses as out-of-pocket, in my opinion, is not a right approach to managing healthcare in a country where the patients tend to sub-optimally purchase healthcare if he/she has to pay out-of-pocket.